Surface boook is just as gimped - 16gb ram, about same cpus, same expensive storage, and other gimmicks (detacheable screen won't do you much good in helping to develop stuff)
16GB of RAM and a mobile i7 has been perfectly acceptable for my day-to-day development needs. As for expensive storage... that's unfortunately true of basically all laptops.
Doesn't help for development per se, but I do enjoy having the flexibility of the "gimmick" screen. I still prefer paper, but it's a viable alternative for note taking.